Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas paid tribute to World War II era Hitler-supporting Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini as well as several known terror leaders responsible for the deaths of Israelis at a rally in Gaza City Friday that marked the 48th anniversary of the political party Fatah.During the televised speech, made to a crowd of hundreds of thousands, Abbas made mention of, among others,&nbsp; Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Sheik Ahmed Yassin–both former leaders of Hamas assassinated by Israel for their role in terrorizing the Jewish state-and Marwan Bargouti, who is currently serving time in an Israeli prison for his role in the deaths of five Israelis.This was Fatah’s first such rally in the territory since a 2007 coup by Hamas ousted the party from power. In his speech Abbas addressed the division, saying that reunification was near. “Soon we will regain our unity,” he said of the two sides, which have drawn closer since the end of the eight-day November conflict, Operation Pillar of Defense, that pitted Israel against Hamas.“The success of the rally is a success for Fatah, and for Hamas too,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. “The positive atmosphere is a step on the way to regain national unity.”Abbas, who is not allowed to enter Gaza, but who was given permission by Hamas to stage the rally and address the crowd, said he would soon return to Gaza and that unification with Hamas would be&nbsp; “a step on the way to ending the (Israeli) occupation.”A number of Fatah activists and officials did make the trip to Gaza for the rally, including Jibril Rajoub, who&nbsp;formerly&nbsp;headed the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, Fatah cofounder Abdul Aziz Shaheen and Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of jailed activist Marwan Barghouti.In the West Bank Thursday, Abbas signed a presidential decree changing the name of the Palestinian Authority to the “State of Palestine,” following the Palestinians’ upgraded status at the United Nations to a non-member observer state.According to the decree, reported by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, all stamps, signs, and official letterhead will be changed to bear the new name.

Contrary to what many people think, there is no profound division between Fatah and Hamas. Palestinians often shuttle from one to the other; members of the same family belong to different groups. Jibril Rajoub, for example, is often interviewed by the Israeli media as representing Fatah (Palestinian Authority), while his brother, Naif, was a minister in the de-facto Hamas administration.Before 2007, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip and suppressed the Fatah presence there, there was a considerable amount of back-and-forth between the organizations. On one occasion a Fatah operative in jail smiled and said he found it hard to say which organization he belonged to. “There are days,” he said, “when I go to sleep Fatah and wake up Hamas…”Last week, masses of people marched through the streets of the West Bank holding green signs with Hamas slogans, all with Fatah’s blessing, and chanting, “death to the Jews,” and “death to Israel.” As one veteran Fatah member said, “In our hearts we are all Hamas.”Mahmoud Abbas’s so-called “pragmatism” is music to Western ears, but not to the Arabs’.Thus, when he came back from the UN with the title of “president of Palestine” in his pocket, he allowed Hamas and others to hold parades and rallies, released Hamas prisoners, and has given instructions that those planning terrorist attacks against Israel are to be left to do as they please.Today the Palestinian Authority can barely stay afloat, and every mass march organized to palliate Hamas can slide into factional Palestinian violence and anti-Israeli terrorism.Hamas, with the help recently and willingly given it by Mahmoud Abbas, will take over, just as it took over the Gaza Strip. Israel can never accept a radical Islamist emirate in the West Bank of the sort Hamas has created in the Gaza Strip, any more than Paris, London or Washington could accept al-Qaeda or the Taliban in Monaco, Wales or Virginia.This time, no one can promise that Israeli soldiers will continue to act as bodyguards for Palestinian leaders when their lives are threatened. That movie, which we have all seen, is no longer playing.

Dr. Anat Berko, a visiting professor at George Washington University and a research fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, is the author of The Smarter Bomb: Women and Children as Suicide Bombers.

Acutely aware of public opinion: Jacques Rogge, International Olympic Committee president

Reuters says (“Organizers try to quell anger over Munich tribute”) that the International Olympic Committee is finally taking a meaningful stand on terrorism – by “hitting back” at the demands for a forty-year-late minute of silence in memory of the slain Israeli victims of the massacre executed by the Palestinian Arab Black September terror organization at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972.

LONDON (Reuters) – Olympic organizers hit back at criticism on Tuesday of how they had honored 11 Israeli team members killed at the 1972 Munich Games, ignoring calls to hold a minute’s silence for them in the opening ceremony. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge led a surprise tribute in the athletes village in London on Monday, but that low-key event failed to satisfy relatives of the victims or Israeli officials.

The Reuters story [source] offers an especially toxic way of describing the Munich 1972 outcome: “Within 24 hours, 11 Israelis, five Palestinians and a German policeman were dead after a standoff and subsequent botched rescue effort.” Meaning that stuff happens and the victims were from all over: from Germany, from Israel, from Palestine. Feh!

About Tuesday’s “low-key” “surprise tribute”, we think there are some important points to be made :

How many people did it actually attract? About 100, according toAssociated Press:“Rogge bowed his head as a crowd of about 100 people — IOC executive board members, dignitaries and Olympic athletes and officials — stood in silence for a minute.” By our count, there are more newspapers that reported the ceremony than people actually participating. Some tribute.

Rogge, to his credit, has been consistent. He “has repeatedly rebuffed calls to hold a moment of silence during Friday’s opening ceremony of the London Games. He said Saturday the opening was not the appropriate place to remember the Israeli team members”. [Source: Associated Press] To our way of thinking, nothing could be more appropriate than the highly-watched opening ceremony, assuming you want people to actually remember.

At Tuesday’s event, Rogge took the opportunity to wax eloquent in front of the crowd of one hundred about the physical surroundings and addressed lofty visions as he spoke of “the 11 Israeli Olympians who shared the ideals that have brought us together in this beautiful Olympic Village… The 11 victims of the Munich tragedy believed in that vision… They came to Munich in the spirit of peace and solidarity. We owe it to them to keep the spirit alive and to remember them.” [Source: Associated Press]

In the interests of repaying what the IOC “owes” to the dead Israelis and their memory, Rogge met last night (Wednesday) with two widows of the dead Israeli Olympians. He managed to leave them “distraught and heartbroken” [report]. It’s almost entirely unreported.

The Israeli widows handed Rogge a petition signed by more than 105,000 people from all over the world, calling for a minute of silence at Friday’s opening ceremony. Rogge said no again. They asked him whether his refusal was because the victims were Israeli. Rogge declined to answer. [Source: JC]

One of the two widows is Anki Spitzer, the prime mover behind the petition [it’shere]. She said: “I was looking him in the eye but he said we had two different opinions. We said ‘you didn’t hear the voice of the world’. He said: ‘Yes I did’.” [Source: JC]

We think Rogge spoke the truth. He is acutely aware of public opinion. The public opinion to which he is paying attention is against the minute’s silence – that is, the public that is important to Rogge and the IOC.

It is clear that a significant part of the Olympic community is embarrassed by and opposed to the singling out of Israeli victims for honoring. Who are they? Yesterday, in a blog posting [see “25-Jul-12: An effective ‘spontaneous minute’ that will speak louder than the IOC’s roaring hypocrisy“], wequotedThomas Bach, International Olympic Committee vice-president on this very matter. Here again is the key quote in which he spills the Olympic beans: “The threats to boycott the opening ceremony made by Arab states in the event of an official minute of silence have led the IOC to mark the 40 year anniversary in other ways, including a minute of silence on Monday inside the Olympic Village, led by IOC President Jacques Rogge. The Arab boycott “had been a possibility, according to some of our advice”, Bach said according to Israel’s Channel 2 news.” [Source: Algemeiner.com]

It’s about the Arabs. Only Bach has admitted it so far.

The IOC has no problem holding massive memorial ceremonies. It’s not an issue of principle, and it’s not something that conflicts with the Olympic spirit. In 2002, at the Winter Olympics in Utah, they held a memorial service attended by 60,000 people [report and picture].

Not everyone is as appalled as we are at the insensitivity of the Olympic management team. The Palestinians, for instance, think it’s really OK. AsPMW notes today, the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas is against the moment of silence: “Sports are meant for peace, not for racism“, the headline in its newspaper says today. Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and a man who knows a thing or two about racism and terrorism, sounds a positively lyrical note in a report from the Arabic media yesterday: “Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them [nations]” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 25, 2012]

Let’s note by the way that Rajoub is himself a seasoned terrorist[see “We salute Shalit’s kidnappers, says Jibril Rajoub“] who has been repeatedly arrested and imprisoned over the decades. He owes his freedom to a notorious 1985 transaction (eventually known as the Jibril Deal) in which he was among 1,150 Palestinian Arabs freed from Israeli prisons in exchange for three Israeli hostages held by a terrorist group. After his release, Rajoub moved to Tunis where he served as aide and advisor to Abu Jihad who was head of the Black September terrorist force in the early ’70s [source]: the same Black September took executed the Munich massacre.

In a letter this week toRogge, the terrorist Rajoub “expressed appreciation for [Rogge’s] position, who opposed the Israeli position, which demanded a moment’s silence at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London.” As PMW points out, Rajoub is unable to bring himself to actually mention the murdered Israeli athletes. Their killing is simply termed “the Munich Operation”. Small wonder that Rajoub and the PA sing the praises of Rogge’s refusal to permit a minute of silence for dead Israeli athletes. But the question for us is: Those people who are standing by and with and behind Rogge –do they subscribe to the Fatah/PLO’s endorsement of the IOC refusal?

We have heard it said that Tuesday’s pathetic “low-key” memorial moment gave worldwide exposure to the murder of the Israeli athletes and that makes it a positive thing. But we say the events of 1972 in Munich gave them worldwide exposure too; does that make the killings a positive thing? The more serious criticism is that the message of Tuesday’s IOC ‘event’ fails to come to grips with what is being remembered. The Munich massacre of 1972 was followed by many more killings, based on the same hatred, the same contempt for other people’s lives, and essentially by the same people. The terrorists who planned and executed are busy planning more. Though the Israelis came in peace, they died as Israelis and Jews. None of this was even hinted at in Rogge’s vacuous “spontaneous” comments. He mentioned Israeli once in the video clip [here]. But the message was not about Israelis or about terror.

We say Tuesday’s “spontaneous” IOC event was symbolic, but not in the way Rogge and the IOC intended. It actually possesses multiple layers of symbolism. Thanks to the ringing endorsement of the Palestinian Authority and its blood-soaked Olympic committee head, we now understand them a good deal better.

Friday is going to be day of pomp, enthusiasm and unstoppable optimism. But in certain ways the opening ceremony of the London Olympics is also – for those of us living daily in an ongoing war – likely to be a reminder of the deep gulf between those who have some understanding of terrorism and what it stands for, and those for whom slogans and lofty pronouncements conceal a fundamental emptiness.

“Inspire a Generation has been revealed as the official motto for the London Olympics. ‘It is the heartbeat, the very DNA of this organisation and a rallying cry for the athletes to come to the UK to perform at their very best and inspire the world.” [Source: Daily Mail]

It would have been good to see the Olympic movement embrace something a little more substantial and focused on genuine humanitarian values.

According to Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee:

“Sports are meant for peace, not for racism… Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them [nations].”[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 25, 2012]

Had the call for a minutes silence remained an online issue, and had it remained an issue about Israelis, the IOC could have continued to ignore it. They have done so in the past without much difficulty. This, however, is 2012. The threat of terrorism, and efforts to mitigate that threat, permeate the games. The threat of terrorism, and the erosion of fundamental rights through anti-terror measures around the world, is a topic of public interest and conversation. Enough time has passed since September 11 for the world to again begin thinking about the balance between security and the cost it imposes on our daily lives.The response to terrorism is something Israel began dealing with a long time ago. The world has changed and today more than ever people around the globe acknowledge the loss of terror victims and the suffering of their families. This is increasingly done without regard for nationality. The IOC’s mistake was thinking the minutes silence was about placating Israelis and the families of the victims. Whatever the wishes of the victims’ families, the campaign gained worldwide support for its own reasons and on its own merits. It spoke to people, and they connected with it and shared it.The 1972 terrorist attack was not an attack on Israelis as much as it was an attack on the Olympics itself. The decision to ban Apartheid South Africa from the games all those decades ago shows that the Olympics is not entirely free of world politics, it is just very cautious and only acts in line with world consensus. That’s where the IOC went wrong; in this matter there is a consensus and the IOC is trying to ignore it.Today’s global consensus is actively against terror. In the face of terror, be it a natural disaster or the politically motivated terror human kind invents for itself, people around the world stand together as one. Social media plays a role as the world becomes ever more connected. The IOC’s failure to incorporate a minutes silence into the opening of the games appears as a failure of leadership; a failure to stand with the people of the world and speak out against our greatest fear.The timing too is significant. Let us for a moment recall that the Olympics only occur every four years. This is therefore the tenth games since the terrorists attacked. There will be no fiftieth anniversary at the 2022 Olympic Games. Indeed, due to the Olympic schedule there will be no 2022 Games. In this context, the failure by the International Olympic Committee to very publicly acknowledge that the games too have been a victim of terror, is akin to an American President refusing to commemorate September 11 on a major anniversary of that tragic event. It is indeed incomprehensible.

The ‘Palestinians,’ on the other hand, commemorate the Olympic massacre regularly. They have called the massacre’s planners ‘a star who sparkled,’ a shahid (martyr), and have said that ‘his star shined in Munich.’ The ‘Palestinian Authority’ – time and time again – has glorified the terrorists who planned and carried out the Munich Olympic Massacre. But that shouldn’t surprise anyone. The financier of the Munich Olympic Massacre is now the President of the ‘Palestinian Authority.’The IOC has a clear moral choice to make tomorrow – to stand with the terrorists of the ‘Palestinian Authority’ or to be true to the Olympic Games and their participants. Given the IOC’s pasthistory, the odds of them making the right choice are not too promising.

Yes… that guy was right. It’s not an issue about Israel. It’s an issue about the Olympics and terror and the IOC is guilty of the worst kind of bias to think it was just about mourning some dead Jews in Munich.